


a wasted heart that just eclipses

by confusednp



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alcoholism, Cancer, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Religious Themes, Terminal Illnesses, i'm sorry in advance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-26 23:50:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15673779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/confusednp/pseuds/confusednp
Summary: Dan learns how to say goodbye a year too late





	a wasted heart that just eclipses

**Author's Note:**

> title from "story of another us"

The peaceful silence of the church seemed to mock Dan as he walked slowly in. The dull thud of his footsteps echoed throughout the entire room. Nothing about the small building had changed since his last visit. The wooden pews sat empty, facing the altar and candles at the front, and the stained glass windows let the sunlight filter in.

Dan took a few more hesitant steps towards the altar. His plan seemed worse and worse with every inch he drew closer to the front of the room. A part of him, the tangled, miserable, scared part, told him to walk out. It would be so easy to leave, and keep pushing this off.

His feet kept carrying him forward, acting in contradiction to what his mind was begging him to do.

What were people supposed to do in church? He knew kneeling was a big thing. That was probably what the red padded benches at the front were for. He passed the last few rows of pews, and let his knees sink into the soft leather. Before him, a stained glass cross kept watch, daring him to speak and break the silence the chapel was drowning in.

He took a deep breath. “Okay.” Fuck. How was this supposed to start? He supposed just the way any other conversation did.

“Hi Phil. It’s Dan.” He almost cringed at his own awkwardness. “Uh, you know I don’t really believe in all this. But I know you did. You told me once that it comforted you to think about God. You said it gave you something…” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “Something to hold on to.”

Dan’s knees shifted a little underneath him, slipping on the thin red carpeting of the prayer stool. “So I knew I had to do this in a church. This was the only one I knew, sorry. I don’t know what to say to you. I really should. Every day, I turn to say something to you, and I have to realize all over again that I can’t anymore.”

It was true. He’d see a funny picture, or get invited to some event, and automatically go looking for Phil to show him. Ten years of old habits die hard.

He cleared his throat. “So…yeah. It’s been almost a year since you-” He couldn’t say it. “Since you departed. You said to me that when it happened- when, not if- you wanted me to write you a letter, burn it, and spread the ashes with yours. But you know I’m shit at writing.” His eyes clouded over a little as he gave a quiet little laugh. He could almost hear Phil reprimanding him, telling him not to swear in a church.

“Every time I sat down to write, I couldn’t find the right words. So I decided you’d like it almost as much if I told you myself. So.. here it goes.” His chest throbbed with a dull pain, right below his ribcage, as if saying that his heart would self destruct with his grieving mind.

“Phil, I miss you. Oh God, miss doesn’t even begin to cover it. Losing you was like cutting half of me off. It still is. I’m so fucking empty without you. The flat’s too big. I know I always complained about how small it was, but that was when you could fill it up. You’re still everywhere in there. I haven’t touched our room all year. I just sleep in my prop bedroom.” 

Truthfully, Dan hadn’t been able to sleep in their old room since the last night they’d spent together there. He’d clung to Phil, as if trying to pin him down to the very world they lived in. Almost like he couldn’t leave if Dan was holding him tight enough.

The next morning, they’d taken a taxi to the hospital for what the doctors promised would be Phil’s last round of chemo. Usually when you hear that, it’s good news, it means the person can go home soon. Not for Phil. They’d heard a bunch of complicated medical terms describing how Phil’s body was reacting to the treatment, but the head doctor on Phil’s case explained it best. 

His body just wouldn’t accept the drugs anymore. Dan had thought no day could be worse than the one they received the diagnosis, but nothing hurt more than realizing Phil had stopped fighting.

The scenery in this chapel was too peaceful for this moment. It made Dan’s goodbye more beautiful than it should be. Because it wasn’t beautiful, it pulled at all the fragile strings that held him together, that bound all the love and pain and fear that made up Dan Howell. Saying this was sawing away at those strings, snapping them one by one.

“Everything would be so much easier if I could just stop loving you. But I can’t. There’s never going to be another Phil.” His chest shuddered.

“You were it for me.”

Most days, he could push these thoughts away, bury them in work or drown them in the burn of alcohol in his throat. Being sad and drunk was a lot better than sad and sober. 

“I remember one of the first things you told me when we found out your prognosis. ‘Don’t find a vice.’ You didn’t want me to turn to drugs or anything when I lost you. Sorry for disappointing you.”

The last sentence had a bite to it, an edge of irony and anger that colored Dan’s words too often these days. He knew the stages of grief, and he’d been told that, in time, they would pass. Most of the time, though, he couldn’t imagine ever moving on from this point, this all-consuming rage that filled him.

All of a sudden, the air seemed too thick to breathe, the quiet beginning to choke him. How dare God sit there in silence when Phil was gone?

“It’s not fair! You did everything right. What kind of fucking vindictive god would still take you from me?” It was like a dam had burst somewhere inside of him, letting a year’s worth of filthy poisonous water rush out. 

Something warm and wet brushed against his cheek. “You didn’t deserve this! I didn’t!”

He realized it was a tear. Soon they were falling thick and fast, leaving dark, angry stains on his gray shirt. Dan looked up, as if to speak directly to God.

“He was good! He was the best person I’ve ever met! There are so many murderers and fucked up criminals out there. Why did you decide Phil deserved to die more than them?”

The birds just kept chirping.

He couldn’t do this. Coming here was a bad idea. It would be so easy to get up and leave, to never see the last rays of the setting sun mocking him through the stained glass cross at the front of the room. To never feel his knees digging into the prayer stool beneath him, and his heart twisting its way down into the pit of his stomach.

You can go, said the little Phil in his head. I’ll forgive you. Dan knew it was true. As much as he was trapped by knowing he would never stop loving Phil, he could wrap himself in the knowledge that he was Phil’s first real love.

And his last.

Fourteen months earlier, Phil had told him as much. The doctor had stepped out of the room to allow the two of them some time to talk after delivering the news they’d been waiting for. Eight weeks left.

“Are you scared?” Dan had asked.

Phil had reached out and taken his hand, his skin so pale under the fluorescent hospital lighting. “No.”

“Why?’

Phil had looked for all the world like an angel, wrapped in white hospital sheets, eyes still bright despite everything. He smiled. “Because I have the rest of my life to love you.”

Dan squeezed his hand tighter. “But I have the rest of mine to miss you.”

“Dan.” Phil’s expression turned serious. “When I die, let me go. Don’t hold on, please. Live your life, and do great things, and change people’s lives. You’re strong enough without me.”

Now, that kept echoing in his head. Let me go. He was at a crossroads now. Either he could leave, and keep pushing this off, drown a little more in his misery, or he could face the reality: Phil was gone. And deep down, he knew the choice was already made.

Let me go.

Dan stood up.

He let his chest expand with a deep breath. 

“I’m never going to stop loving you. But me being like this, it isn’t doing you any good.”

He turned on his heel, facing the light that poured from the window. 

“I feel like you’re still with me. Like, I don’t even know, like you can’t rest when I’m holding on to you. Am I right?”

Only the wind answered him.

“When you died, everybody told me that it would be okay, that you weren’t suffering anymore. I didn’t believe them, because fuck, how could you rest when you’re dead?”

Dan’s breath caught in his chest. This wasn’t the time to start crying again. But maybe it was. Maybe it was time to start cracking the wall that held back all his memories, everything that could hurt him. So he let his eyes burn with the promise of tears.

“So I guess this is what I’m actually here for. To let you go.”

The first drop fell warm and salty down the side of his face.

“I don’t want to carry you with me for the rest of my life,” he said. “You deserve more than just being a memory. I want you to be able to relax. I want you to rest.”

The wall inside him wasn’t cracked so much as obliterated. For so long, everything that had hurt him or reminded him of Phil could be tucked neatly behind that barrier, and Dan could keep living in sanity. But walls keep things trapped inside as much as they keep them out.

Let me go, the Phil in his head whispered again.

The sun was so blinding through the glass.

Dan felt so exposed, so vulnerable. He’d poured himself out in front of Phil, in front of a God he didn’t even believe in. All that was left was the truth. All that was left was himself.

The tiny seaside chapel stayed as quiet as before, the shafts of sunlight illuminating tiny clouds of dust mites. Nothing was different. Everything was different. Dan turned toward the door, and took a couple steps in that direction. Then he stopped, and walked back to the front pews.

“You can sleep now, Phil. I’ll see you on the other side.”

The church was quiet except for the noise of the birds outside when Dan walked out.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading
> 
> my tumblr is confusednp


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